Walker vowed
that the GOP's next presidential nominee must be someone "from outside
Washington," touting his success at the state level in cutting spending.
He also chimed in on Obamacare, prodding the party to move forward on a new
idea. He said that the party "can't go back in time," and need to
replace Obamacare with something "patient-centered."

Christie, on his part, recalled the 2012 trip he and his family took to
Israel. He said, “I took a helicopter ride from the occupied territories
across and just felt personally how extraordinary that was to understand, the
military risk that Israel faces every day.” The story was intended to forge
common cause with Jewish casino owner Sheldon Adelson (who has been financing
illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories flouting international
laws) and the several hundred donors to the Republican Jewish Coalition to
which Christie was speaking.

But as
soon as Christie uttered the term “occupied territories”, it set off murmurs in
the crowd. It is a forbidden word in Zionism, and amongst zealous Zionists who
consider the term as validating Palestinian
challenges over Israel’s illegal occupation and presence there. Other Christian
Zionist supporters of Israel also oppose the use of the term in spite of the
fact that the international community, including Israel’s greatest benefactor –
the USA, officially maintains that the West Bank of the Jordan River with
Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israel War, comprises
the Occupied Territories. The Zionist state has been maintaining a military presence ever since 1967.

Christie’s
comments drew criticism amongst the die-hard supporters of the illegal Jewish
settlement movement. The 80-year-old GOP mega donor Adelson could not have
been amused. He owns the Venetian resort
that hosted the four-day conference – already being dubbed "the Sheldon
primary" – complete with Scotch tastings, private roundtable panels, golf,
poker and other activities. In the 2012 election cycle, Adelson poured in more than $90 million to super PACs and candidates
including Newt Gingrich to unseat President Obama and other Democrats. With his
dirty casino money, he remains a formidable force in American politics, a fact which
was not lost last weekend.

According to published
reports, soon after the speech, Morton Klein, president of the hawkish Zionist
Organization of America, confronted Christie about his use of the term, lecturing
the New Jersey governor that “at minimum you should call it disputed
territories.” According to Politico, Christie
was non-committal at the beginning. The
governor “either doesn’t understand the issue at all, or he’s hostile to
Israel,” said Klein.

Later, however, Christie
met with Adelson privately in the casino mogul’s office in the Venetian hotel
and casino, which hosted the RJC meeting. We are told that there Christie
“clarified in the strongest terms possible that his remarks today were not meant
to be a statement of policy,” and conveyed that he “is an unwavering friend and
committed supporter of Israel, and was sorry for any confusion that came across
as a result of the misstatement.” Adelson accepted Christie’s explanation.

Besides the comment,
Christie largely impressed the crowd Saturday night. He also criticized the
Obama administration’s approach to foreign policy, which the RJC crowd
distrusts deeply. “We cannot have a world where our friends are unsure of
whether we’ll be with them, and our enemies are unsure of whether we’ll be
against them,” Christie said to loud applause. He also recounted meeting the
hawkish Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an RJC favorite, and being
“extraordinarily taken by his strength and resolve.”

The three governors are considered likely contenders for the GOP
presidential nomination in 2016. Party loyalists hope their attendance this
weekend will help convince Adelson to support an establishment candidate in the
next presidential, rather than a dark horse candidate like Newt Gingrich who he
propped up with millions in 2012. Christie got loud applause when he said,
"It’s time for us to stop as a party killing each other."

The mini-controversy and
quick apology from Governor Christie once again highlight the influence of the
powerful ‘Israel Lobby’ in dictating what’s kosher for American politicians and
what’s not when it comes to the Middle East politics.

As the adage goes: hell can
freeze, but don’t dare to challenge the Israeli interest in the USA! To succeed
as a politician in this country one must appear and sound more Zionist than an
Israeli Jew.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

In 1909, a Hindu communalist by the name of Colonel
U.N. Mukherji wrote a pamphlet Hindus: A Dying Race. His
projections, based on the study of census data between 1881 and 1901, suggested
that Hindu demographic share was declining with every passing decade. Col.
Mukherji met Swami Shraddhanand of Arya Samaj at Calcutta in 1911. His novice
study prompted Swami Shraddhanand to formulate Shuddhi and Sangathan. It was a
project to bring back converted Hindus into their native Hindu fold. The rest
is history!

In recent years, in analyzing India's religious demography, the
authors [all non-demographers] of the book - “Religious Demography of India”, Joshi et al., have explicitly stated that there is much Indian Religionists – a term used
as an euphemism for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains - need to fear. They
claimed, "Theproportion of Indian Religionists in the population of India
has declined by 11 percentage points during the period of 110 years ... Indian
Religionists formed 79.32 per cent of the population in 1881 and 68.03 per cent
in 1991 ... If the trend ... continues, then the proportion of Indian
Religionists in India is likely to fall below 50 per cent early in the latter
half of the 21st century." As can be seen the authors purposively included Pakistan and Bangladesh in their
rhetoric. The sly authors don’t tell
their readers that for the present Indian Union, the “decline” has been trivial
in the last 100 years (e.g., from 86.64 % in 1901 to 85.09 % in 1991). But who
wants to do the math when the politically motivated, chauvinist, non-demographers
are doing all the hard work for their mesmerized audience!

Since the publication of this Hindu Mein Kamf
of sort, touted as a ‘landmark’ work by former Deputy Prime Minister L.K.
Advani, many Hindu communalists and fanatics of the Hindutva have played the religious
card too well to drum up support within the broader
Hindu community. They claim, like those authors, that "pocket of high Muslim influence seems to be
now developing in the northern border belt covering Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West
Bengal and Assam. And a border pocket of even more intense Christian influence
has developed in the north-eastern states". Now
the issue has become a national one catapulting many obscure, chauvinist political
figures to national roles. It won’t be any surprise when the Hindu fundamentalist
BJP (a member of the Sangh Parivar) wins the next national election in India and
her one-time tea hawker Narendra Modi (now the chief minister of
Gujarat) becomes the Prime Minister.

As I have noted before, these
narrow-minded Hindu fanatics are simply oblivious of the various factors that contribute
to demographic changes in a landscape – e.g., the fertility and mortality rates,
socio-economic conditions, female literacy, urbanization, family planning and migration.
In a 2005 paper, “District Level Fertility Estimates for Hindus and Muslims,”
Professor S Irudaya Rajan of Center for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala, India, provided estimates of crude birth rates
(CBR) and total fertility rates (TFR) for Hindus and Muslims for 594 districts
of India, and assessed the state and district level differentials across the
country. It reconfirms that there is a regional variation in fertility in
India, with higher fertility in the north than in the southern and western
parts, irrespective of religious affiliation.

Professor
Rajan’s analysis showed that while the difference is narrow or negligible in
south and west India, a significantly higher rate of Muslim fertility is
observed in eastern and north-eastern India. The difference in Hindu-Muslim
fertility is far higher in states like West Bengal, Assam, the north-eastern
states and a few northern states (thus contributing to higher annual growth rate). But in other parts of the country, Muslim
fertility is falling in line with Hindu fertility as the difference is narrow
both at higher and lower levels of fertility. This sharp differential in
fertility among Hindus and Muslims in northern and eastern parts of India can
be explained by the female literacy differentials by religion in these states
rather than any other social-economic variable. As demographers have found out female
education always emerges as a major predictor for fertility differentials.
Table 1 depicts the differences in total fertility rate (TFR) and female literacy
rates (FLR) among Hindus and Muslim in different states and union territories
in India. Interestingly, all those states recording much higher Muslim
fertility than that for Hindus have very low female literacy levels among
Muslims. The largest differential between Hindu-Muslim female literacy is in
Haryana, where female literacy among Muslims is as low as 21.5 % compared to
57.1 % among Hindus.

Table 1: The differentials in total fertility rate (TFR) and
female literary rates (FLR) between Muslims and Hindus in India (by states and
Union territories) in 2001

Indian States or Union Territories

TFR-delta

FLR-delta

Jammu & Kashmir

0.5

-24.1

Himachal Pradesh

1.5

-21.1

Punjab

1.2

-24.9

Chandigarh

1.9

-17.9

Uttaranchal

2.2

-21.4

Haryana

3.2

-35.6

Delhi

1.6

-16.3

Rajasthan

0.7

-2.4

Uttar Pradesh

0.7

-5.7

Bihar

0.6

-1.9

Sikkim

1.7

-8.5

Arunachal Pradesh

1.6

-7.5

Nagaland

2.6

-32.3

Manipur

2

-23.1

Mizoram

1.9

-23.8

Tripura

1.7

-15.9

Meghalaya

2.2

-25.1

Assam

2.3

-20.9

West Bengal

1.9

-13.3

Jharkhand

1.1

3.5

Orissa

0.7

11.7

Chhattisgarh

-0.4

23.2

Madhya Pradesh

-0.1

11.1

Gujarat

0.2

6.8

Daman & Diu

-0.6

8

Dadra & Nagar Haveli

-0.3

34.2

Maharashtra

0.8

4.9

Andhra Pradesh

0.5

9.9

Karnataka

0.9

7.7

Goa

1.3

-4.2

Lakshadweep

1.7

-16

Kerala

1.1

-1.2

Tamil Nadu

0.3

13.8

Pondicherry

0.1

10.1

Andaman & Nicobar

-0.5

11.7

I
have analyzed the data statistically and found that there is a strong
correlation between the differentials in TFR and FLR:

TFR-delta = 0.823 - 0.0484 FLR-delta

with a
R-sq(adj) of 73.1%. However, if the data for Jammu and Kashmir, Daman & Diu,
Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Andaman & Nicobar, and Punjab (with high residual
errors) are discarded from the analysis, the correlation is much improved with
a R-sq(adj) of 88.1%. The corresponding regression equation then becomes:

TFR-delta = 0.908 - 0.0532 FLR-delta.

The
data strongly corroborate the well-known fact that the two parameters have
inverse relationship, i.e., when female literacy rate goes up, the total fertility
rate goes down.

Prof.
Rajan’s study also reconfirms regional variation in fertility in India: higher
fertility in the north compared to the southern and western parts of India,
which is true irrespective of religious affiliation. For instance, the
illiterate women in Kerala have fewer children compared to illiterate women in
Madhya Pradesh or anywhere else in India As shown in Table 2, in south and east
India, the annual growth rate has declined among Muslims and Hindus alike and in states with
high fertility both the religious groups show a similar phenomenon. During the
1991-2001 decade, the Hindu growth rate in north-west showed an increase; this
was also true for Muslims in the north-east and west.

[Note that the latest 2011
Indian census data do not provide religion-based information. As such, much of
the analysis and discussion that follows below is based on previous census
data.]

When it comes to fertility rate,
socio-economic condition does matter. This well-known fact is reflected in the
Indian census data. Even in the demographically developed state of Kerala
(which has the highest literacy rate – 94% in India), the population growth
rates of Hindu brahmins are much lower than that of Hindu nairs, followed by
Hindu ezhavas. Similarly among Christians, Syrian Christians’ growth rates are
lower than that of Latin Christians. In the post-partition early decades
Kerala’s population growth rate was not only high (above 2% per annum) by its
own standards, but also higher than India’s growth rates several decades after
independence. During the 1991-2001 decade Kerala’s growth rate was just 0.9 % per
annum as against India’s 1.9. Similarly, between 1981-91 and 1991-2001, the
Muslim growth rate in India has shown a decrease from 3.2 % per annum to 2.9 %
per annum.

In
the pre- and early British era of colonization of India, Muslims, in general,
who were economically more prosperous than other religious groups, had a lower
growth rate. As their socio-economic condition deteriorated during the British
colonial era and after Indian independence, the growth rate increased.
Professor Rajan’s demographic study (see Table 3) also shows that at the
beginning of the 20th century, Muslim growth rates were slightly lower than
that for Hindus. Since then, Muslims in India registered higher growth rates in
comparison to Hindus as well as the total population right through the last 100
years. Even during the influenza decade of 1911-21, India’s growth rate was
zero and the Hindus registered a negative growth rate. Muslims registered a
minimal growth of just 0.1 % per annum. The defining moment of both the
Hindu and Muslim population growth rate was after independence. Muslims
registered a negative growth rate of 1.8 % per annum in 1941-1951 resulting
from the large-scale movement of people from India to Pakistan. On the other
hand, Hindus registered the highest growth rate of close to 2.4 %. As
the table 3 below shows, the growth rates of Hindus and Muslims in
the post-independence decades, Hindu population growth hovered between 2.0-2.2 %
per annum whereas Muslims growth was between 2.7-2.8 %. In other words, both
groups grew by more than 2 % per annum during 1961-1991.

In
the post partition era, Muslims as a whole appear to have 0.75 % higher annual
growth rate than majority Hindus (e.g., 2.57% compared to 1.82% in 1991-2001).
And unless their socio-economic conditions improve significantly with jobs and
education, esp. amongst the Muslim females, this trend may continue for a
foreseeable future.

I
share below the size of the population in 15 Indian states (representing
approx. 90% of the population) from 1951 to 2011.

Indian State

1951

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

2011

West
Bengal

26299980

34926279

44312011

54580647

68077965

80176197

91,276,115

Andhra
Pradesh

31095259

35983447

43502708

53551026

66508008

76210007

84,580,777

Assam

8028856

10837329

14625152

18041248

22414322

26655528

31,205,576

Bihar

37782271

46447457

56353369

69914734

64530554

82998509

104,099,452

Gujarat

16262657

20633350

26697475

34085799

41309582

50671017

60,439,692

Haryana

5673614

7590524

10036431

12922119

16463648

21144564

25,351,462

Karnataka

19401956

23586772

29299014

37135714

44977201

52850562

61,095,297

Kerala

13559118

16903715

21347375

25453680

29098518

31841374

33,406,061

Madhya Pradesh

26071637

32372408

41654119

52178844

48566242

60348023

72,626,809

Maharashtra

32002564

39553718

50412235

62782818

78937187

96878627

112,374,333

Orissa

14645946

17548846

21944615

26370271

31659736

36804660

41,974,218

Punjab

9160500

11135069

13551060

16788915

20281969

24358999

27,743,338

Rajasthan

15970774

20155602

25765806

34261862

44005990

56507188

68,548,437

Tamil Nadu

30119047

33686953

41199168

48408077

55858946

62405679

72,147,030

Uttar Pradesh

63219655

73754573

88341521

110862512

132061653

166197921

199,812,341

The
percentage of majority Hindus and minority Muslims living in these 15 Indian
states, as per 2001 Indian census, is shown below.

Indian State

Muslim-2001

% Muslim

Hindu-2001

% Hindu

West Bengal

20240543

25.2%

58104835

72.5%

Andhra Pradesh

6986856

9.2%

67836651

89.0%

Assam

8240611

30.9%

17296455

64.9%

Bihar

13722048

16.5%

69076919

83.2%

Gujarat

4592854

9.1%

45143074

89.1%

Haryana

1222916

5.8%

18655925

88.2%

Karnataka

6463127

12.2%

44321279

83.9%

Kerala

7863842

24.7%

17883449

56.2%

Madhya Pradesh

3841449

6.4%

55004675

91.1%

Maharashtra

10270485

10.6%

77859385

80.4%

Orissa

761985

2.1%

34726129

94.4%

Punjab

382045

1.6%

8997942

36.9%

Rajasthan

4788227

8.5%

50151452

88.8%

Tamil Nadu

3470647

5.6%

54985079

88.1%

Uttar Pradesh

30740158

18.5%

133979263

80.6%

Total

123,587,793

13.3%

754,022,512

81.4%

As
can be seen, in the 2001 census, only the five bigger states (Uttar Pradesh –
18.5 %, Bihar – 16.5 %, Assam – 30.9 %, Kerala – 24.7 % and West Bengal – 25.2 %),
two smaller states (Jammu and Kashmir – 67 % and Jharkland – 13.8 %; not shown
in the table above) and one union territory (Lakshadweep – 95.5 %; not shown in
the table above) had a proportion of Muslims above the national average of 13.3
%. Professor Rajan’s study showed that among the above eight states/union
territories, five of them reported their Muslim growth rates as below the national
growth rate of 2.57 %; in fact, two states reported below the national average
of 2.03 %.

The
Table below shows the % annual growth rate in 15 major Indian states from 1951
to 2011.

Indian State

1951

2011

% annual growth (1951-2011)

% annual growth (2001-2011)

West Bengal

26,299,980

91,276,115

2.1%

1.3%

Andhra Pradesh

31,095,259

84,580,777

1.7%

1.0%

Assam

8,028,856

31,205,576

2.3%

1.6%

Bihar

37,782,271

104,099,452

1.7%

2.3%

Gujarat

16,262,657

60,439,692

2.2%

1.8%

Haryana

5,673,614

25,351,462

2.5%

1.8%

Karnataka

19,401,956

61,095,297

1.9%

1.5%

Kerala

13,559,118

33,406,061

1.5%

0.5%

Madhya Pradesh

26,071,637

72,626,809

1.7%

1.9%

Maharashtra

32,002,564

112,374,333

2.1%

1.5%

Orissa

14,645,946

41,974,218

1.8%

1.3%

Punjab

9,160,500

27,743,338

1.9%

1.3%

Rajasthan

15,970,774

68,548,437

2.5%

2.0%

Tamil Nadu

30,119,047

72,147,030

1.5%

1.5%

Uttar Pradesh

63,219,655

199,812,341

1.9%

1.9%

Total in 15 states

349,293,834

1,086,680,938

1.9%

1.6%

Overall population

1,210,193,422

1.6%

The
census data of 2011 show that Bangladesh’s neighboring state West Bengal had an
overall annual growth rate that was lower than the national average of 1.6%,
and even the data for the state of Assam is at par with the national average.
As such, the Hindutvadi claims about Bangladeshi Muslims inflating the growth
rate appear to be just hogwash and unsubstantial.

In
the context of India, as rightly noted by Prof. Rajan, despite higher growth
rates amongst Muslims, “the population projections by religion indicates that
Muslims will add fewer people in absolute numbers, compared to Hindus in the next
50 years, owing to their smaller population base.”

So, why all this hocus pocus around ‘endangered’
Hindu community, not just in ‘Islamic’ Bangladesh but also in ‘mother’ India? Who
gains from such exaggerated, unsubstantiated claims of groups like HRCBM – a pro-Indian Hindu
advocacy group that has hitherto collaborated with anti-Bangladesh and
anti-Muslim hate groups like Hindu Samhati, Mukta-mona and CRIBR? What are they
aiming for – further polarization of the people along religious lines? Are they
aiming for Indian hegemony in territories lost during the Partition of India? Rather
than making mountains out of moles why not they work towards breaking the wall
of monumental hatred that they espouse against non-Hindus? Why not they create opportunities
for education and job amongst the downtrodden so that with upward mobility the
latter would have less fertility rate, and therefore, unable to change the very
demography that they are so mindful of protecting?

Contrary
to the claims made by HRCBM, Bangladeshi Hindus (who comprise less than 9% of
the population) are more prosperous than fellow Muslims and are well placed in every
sector in spite of the fact that many have chosen to settle overseas. That
preference for the educated folks to live in more prosperous countries is
nothing new and has been the trend throughout history. The cultural ties and
religious affiliation with vast majority of Hindus living next door in India
have also gravitated some Bangladeshi Hindus to retiring in India while they
made money inside Bangladesh. Such traits are in human DNA. It is no surprise,
therefore, that their proportion inside Bangladesh has shrunk comparatively.

The
influx of persecuted Muslims from India and Burma into Bangladesh, on the other
hand, has resulted in widening this proportion between Hindus and Muslims. Not
to be ignored in this context, as shown above, is the fact that population
growth rate amongst poor Muslims have been greater than more prosperous Hindus.
So, when Hindu activists like Trivedi complain that their proportion has been
on the decline since 1941, it is no brainer to understand the root causes.

It
is utterly irresponsible and disingenuous of such activists to link the gap
with so-called persecution and discrimination of Hindus. Such false claims play
into the hands of Hindu extremists inside India who exploit those to execute
their fascist plan of depopulating Muslims out of India, and create fertile
grounds for xenophobia, intolerance and bigotry.

As
noted by Swapan Dasgupta in India Today, the British were very zealous with
their demographic studies in India – all to maximize the ‘divide and rule’
policy. Before 1881, very few Indians knew about the religious divide so
carefully crafted by the new imperial masters. The realization that Muslims made up a majority
in undivided Bengal gave a stimulus to cultural separatism. Bengali Hindus subsequently
did not want to remain a minority in Joint Bengal and created the very conditions
that helped the creation of Pakistan via Partition of India in 1947.

If the
Hindus of today want to repeat the same mistakes of yesteryears, no Modi and no
Tapan Ghosh can save India’s fragmentation.

Followers

About Me

I have a long history of a peaceful activist in my effort towards improving human rights and creating a just and equitable world. I have written extensively in the arena of humanity, global politics, social conscience and human rights since 1980, many of which have appeared in newspapers, magazines, journals and the Internet. I have tirelessly championed the cause of the disadvantaged, the poor and the forgotten here in Americas and abroad. Commenting on my articles, others have said, "His meticulously researched essays and articles combined with real human dimensions on the plight of the displaced peoples of Rohingya in Myanmar, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Palestine, and American Muslims in the post-9/11 era have made him a singular important intellectual offering a sane voice with counterpoints to the shrill threats of the oppressors and the powerful. He offers a fresh and insightful perspective on a whole generation of a misunderstood and displaced people with little or no voice of their own." I have authored 13 books, 10 of which are now available through the Amazon.com.